Wild Game Day number 22 Wild Record (10-8-3 23 pts) Home Record (5-3-2)
Opponent: Colorado Avalanche (11-8-1 23 pts) Road Record (4-7-0)
Site: Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul, MN
Time: 3:00PM CT
TV: Fox Sports North (FSN)
Last Season Results: 11/6 Wild 0 @ Avalanche 1 11/19 Avalanche 3 @ Wild 2 12/20 Avalanche 0 @ Wild 2 4/2 Avalanche 2 @ Wild 5 4/6 Wild 4 @ Avalanche 3
The Wild will finally get a stretch of three straight Central Division games beginning today as they host Colorado. After having played five of their first 20 games within the division, these next three games give the Wild an opportunity to break free from the logjam at the bottom of the division. Sitting in 6th place in the Division with 23 points was not how Chuck Fletcher and Bruce Boudreau had envisioned the first quarter of the 2017-18 season to unfold.
It has been a blasé season to this point for Minnesota. Two games over .500, one four game win streak, three OT losses, and very little consistency has been the staple of the first quarter for the Wild.
The Avalanche on the other hand have been far better than anyone had envisioned before the season began. Colorado has 11 through the first quarter of the season, which is half as many wins as the Avalanche had all of last season.
A lot of focus had been on the Matt Duchesne saga in Colorado, but now that is in the rear view mirror the Avalanche have moved on. Duchesne was sent to Ottawa in a three way deal that included Nashville, which brought Samuel Girard to Colorado, along with Vladislav Kamenev, Shane Bowers, and Andrew Hammond.
The Wild won Wednesday night in Buffalo in what may have been their worst performance in a win this season. The goaltending on both ends of the ice was suspect at best, something that has been the norm for Buffalo, but alarming to see the lack of focus of Devan Dubnyk in the Wild net.
This is beginning to be a real issue for the Wild. It keeps being said that Dubnyk plays better when he is playing more. Where does this come from?
Ever since Dubnyk arrived in Minnesota there has been no other reliable option to play in the Wild net other than #40. Also prior to Dubnyk donning the Wild sweater he had not established himself as a reliable NHL goalie either. The move became a perfect match for Dubnyk and the Wild, a team desperate for someone to take the reigns and stop pucks on a consistent basis and a goalie on the fringe of being outside the NHL for good.
But now with Alex Stalock giving the Wild solid performances in each of the five games in which he has appeared, the Wild have some confidence in another goalie for the first time in three years.
The fact that Dubnyk has known that he has had no threat to his position has created a comfort level that is never a good thing in professional sports. I feel that Dubnyk is a very good NHL goalie, but that said, he has not taken his game to the upper echelon of the league's best goalies.
The talk last week with the Wild was who is going to score besides Jason Zucker? Now it is all about Nino Niederreiter who has goals in five straight and Mikael Granlund with four goals in the last two games.
Oh by the way this is the way the Wild are built. They will always have a forward or two that are hot, and four or five that are in "drought" as the media will call it. The fact is, when you have a balanced attack, that comes with the territory but it becomes easy fodder for the scribe to scan the stats and create a story.
The quarter pole has been reached and the Wild are in an OK position. But OK, is not good enough, to be in a playoff position if the season were to end today.
We all know that a lot more was expected of the Wild when the season began. But in the end it is only November, and the Wild are within striking position of a playoff spot. They are fully capable of going on a run and climbing the standings as well. Unfortunately they are also capable of remaining mediocre with their win one, lose one, win two, lose one merry-go-round.
Today is a big game for the Wild, they need to string together wins first and foremost, and then of course the next two games are on the road in St. Louis tomorrow and Winnipeg on Monday, the top two teams in the Western Conference through the first quarter of the season.
It's always Hockey Day in The State of Hockey!